March 12, 2011 Carrizo Plain fence removal

An ongoing volunteer effort to remove century old fencing from the Carrizo Plain, giving pronghorn antelope more access to roam across the vast wild landscape. Pronghorn are the second-fastest land mammals on the planet, and can sustain high speeds longer than cheetahs -- up to fifty miles per hour or more. Although built for speed, they are very poor jumpers, and fencing restricts their movement and makes them more vulnerable to injuries and predators. Historically present in the Carrizo Plain, pronghorn were exterminated from the area in the early 1900s. In the late 1980s, the California Department of Fish & Game gathered more than two hundred pronghorn from northeastern California and released them into the Carrizo Plain, and the area currently supports the only population of free-ranging pronghorn in Central California. As of 2007, the Carrizo herd consisted of 84 pronghorn - the goal is to bring the population up to at least 300 antelope. Walking across the grassland one can observe the pocked marked soil from the underground tunnel systems of countless kangaroo rats, ground squirrels, weasels, badgers, burrowing owls. Leopard Lizards and the rare San Joaquin kit fox also inhabit the Carrizo. On this day we saw a golden eagle, heard many meadow larks, saw the remains of kangaroo rats left on the ground beside fence posts from preying raptors, but no pronghorn. Pronghorn can detect movement up to 4 miles away, and across the barren plain perhaps our group of 9 may have been observed from afar. The last photo in this gallery shows a vista free of fencing and the freedom at last to roam. A very rewarding day of work.